Welp, Looks Like I’ve Fallen Into My Fifteenth Ice Crevasse On This Expedition to the South Pole

The first ice crevasse was harrowing; I thought I was going to die. The second made me think I should have brought a map on this solo South Pole expedition. By the eighth, I was annoyed. But fifteen? Something, other than the voice of my children, tells me I am not cut out for this.

What’s even more embarrassing about this whole thing is that my wife explicitly told me that I should watch out for crevasses. I just scoffed at her, “Yeah, sure, there are like two in the whole continent.” But look who’s eating his words now, forty-feet deep in a glacier for the fifteenth fucking time.

Yeah, you heard that right, crevasse number fifteen. The ol’ crevasse one-five. I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that, over the last few days, I should have been way more careful. The thing about ice crevasses is that they’re massive holes in the ice and are super easy to avoid if you’re prepared, which, I guess, I wasn’t.

It sucks because all I wanted to do was to be the first person to reach the South Pole using only the stars for navigation. This turned out to be a mistake because that meant I could only travel at night, which is impossible on account of the extreme cold and high winds.

I will say, though, that after the twelfth ice crevasse fall I started to turn into a bit of a grumpus. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a worse mood. You know that feeling in the morning before your coffee and your wife asks you to do something dumb like take out the garbage or “make breakfast this morning because I’m sick.” I’m like four or five times more peeved than I would be in that situation.

That’s one of the things I guess they leave out when they talk about Antarctica, that if you fall in a baker’s dozen (plus two) ice crevasses, it’s going to affect your mood. They should really have some signs out here though. It seems really unsafe to not warn people about the potential to fall in fifteen ice crevasses. They should really look into filling these in with concrete or something.

As for me, I’m worried that as soon as I get out of this crevasse, I’m just going to find myself in another one. I still have about forty miles to go and who knows how many crevasses are between here and my destination, The South Pole. I mean what’s to stop me from falling into a sixteenth, a seventeenth or even a twentieth? I seem to be a goddamn magnet for the fucking things.

I would be fine being the person who falls in one or maybe two crevasses, but this whole fifteen thing is going to make me a laughing stock. Worse yet, falling in ice crevasses isn’t even scary anymore; escaping this fifteenth one isn’t even going to be a test of my endurance, will and drive to survive. It really sucks to say this, but it’s routine now. It’s hard to have that same life-affirming energy after fourteen physically and spiritually grueling ice-crevasse escapes.

Ugh. This is all getting so boring.

I hope when I get out of here I can just bee-line to the South Pole and get this the whole thing over with. I should have just stayed home and been happy with being a highly successful, award-winning brain surgeon who has never been to The South Pole.